The Princess and The Phantom
by Kate September
Summary: Erik lives in England, his soul as grey as the skies over London. One night, he meets a young servant from Miss Minchin's Seminary for Young Ladies, and nothing will ever be the same again. Phantom and Little Princess crossover...
1. The Return of Ram Dass

It was one of London's cold, foggy nights, when the pleasant warmth of an early autumn day had given way to a chill that bespoke of the months of cold that were fast approaching.

In the gloom that enveloped the square, a dark, slender figure hurried along, unnoticed by those more comfortable in their cozy houses and warm carriages.

Sara Crewe was tired, more tired than she had been in a long time. She was recovering from an attack of influenza, and though still not completely well, she had been rousted from her sickbed to return to her duties in the kitchen and schoolroom.

As she made her way through the darkness, hugging her thin shoulders against the insidious chill, she glanced up at the golden, light-filled windows of the Large Family. She tried to smile, but her face hurt too much to muster more than a shadow of a tender look. She tried to focus on stepping around the piles of dirt in the street as she crossed the square, but her mind was feeling oddly light and dizzy.

Unable to decide if she felt too hot or too cold, Sara leaned for a moment against the gate of the house that had once belonged to the mysterious Indian Gentleman, the one who had passed away not long after coming to live in the square. For many years, it had stood empty, like a sad sentinel. Just a few months prior, though, a new man had taken up residence. But for all that he was seen or that any sign of life showed in the house, it might as well still be empty.

Sara fought back a wave of nausea, and in her moment of physical weakness, she found herself marveling that it was ten years ago that her father had died on her eleventh birthday. Ten years ago that very day, and here she was, too sick and too tired to grieve specially for him.

"I am a princess," she thought to herself, her thin hands clutching at the black iron grille for support. "A princess does not show weakness to the world."

Her body protested that princesses would have doctors and nurses to help her back to health instead of being forced to run errands in the cold and dark with a body only half-healed.

Sara's eyes closed without her realizing it, and she slumped slightly against the gate. She was so close to Miss Minchin's Seminary, really just a few steps more. But a violent wave of dizziness and nausea prevented her from moving.

"Are you ill?"

Sara's eyes flew open, and she gasped, struggling to stand straight to address the man who had spoken to her.

"N-no, sir," she replied in her quiet, quaint way, dropping him a dizzy curtsey, keeping her eyes fixed respectfully on the ground.

"You are the servant from the Seminary?"

The man's voice was low and soft, though not warm. There was a compelling tone to it, and Sara dared to raise her face to study the source of the voice.

The man was very tall, and in the darkness, he seemed to loom over her, almost over-powering in his presence, with his broad shoulders and black clothes. Half his face was in shadows, but the half that showed was very handsome. He wore a hat pulled low over his face, as if to help the shadows along.

"I am, sir," Sara replied, studying him with her great grey-green eyes. Though the years of privation and hard living had left her far too thin, with a complexion that lacked the brilliance of those more well-nourished, there was still a clarity to her eyes, a spirit that shone out from them.

The man seemed to study her with an equal, though more guarded, interest.

"If you are not ill, then why do you linger at my gate?" he asked, and Sara noticed a hard, suspicious edge to his voice. Instead of feeling afraid or angry, Sara instantly pitied the man for whatever had made him so terribly harsh.

"I beg your pardon, sir," she replied, feeling uncomfortable as a horrible flash of heat overtook her, producing a clammy sweat on her skin and dampening her chilled clothes. "I grew dizzy for a moment and needed to rest. I…I am better now."

The man quirked an eyebrow, his half-face plainly disbelieving.

Sara shivered involuntarily, though not from fear. A chill had set in that weakened her tired legs and set her stomach roiling. But she held the gaze of the man unwaveringly.

"I am a princess," she thought to herself, trying to focus her rapidly dissipating thoughts. "I should be concerned for others and not for myself."

"Please, sir," Sara said quietly. "It is a cold night, and you should go indoors where there is a great warm fire to welcome you, and perhaps a tea kettle that is singing merrily along. Perhaps there is buttered toast, too, and a large, soft chair by the fire."

As she spoke, she lost track of the fact that she was supposed to be giving kindly advice and spoke more as if she was dreaming of something she herself imagined and longed for.

The man's expression changed, ever so slightly.

Sara recollected herself with a slight start, bringing her eyes to focus again on his.

"I should go," she said softly. "Good evening, sir."

Despite all her years of hardship, she was still a friendly little soul, and still possessed of a magical smile that could warm and hearten even the most hardened of spirits.

And Sara smiled at the man before she turned and walked away.

* * *

Erik watched the young servant woman walk away, though walking was not exactly the _mot juste_. Staggering would be more like it, with one slim paw clinging to the grille of the gate until she reached the kitchen stairs of Miss Minchin's Seminary for Young Ladies.

She had smiled at him.

She was the one who was obviously ill and suffering, and yet she had smiled at him.

He frowned deeply, then turned and hurried up the steps to his house.

Once inside, he flung aside his cloak and stalked into the sitting room where Ram Dass was waiting. Despite being insufferably cheerful, Carmichael – his solicitor – had been good to him, helping him secure this house and even procuring the mysterious, unquestioning but highly capable man servant, Ram Dass.

He stopped short for a moment at the sight of the fire. There was his great fire in the fireplace, his soft chair, and a steaming cup of tea ready for him. He thought of the servant girl and scowled.

Sitting down in the comfortable chair, Erik steepled his fingers and stared deeply into the fire.

"Ram Dass," he said quietly. "You used to live in this house before, did you not?"

"Yes, sahib, many years ago," the Lascar replied, bowing politely.

"What do you know of the school next door?"

The Lascar eyed him thoughtfully, then smiled, as if enjoying a private joke.

"I know that there was a young girl who lived in the attic, sahib," Ram Dass said, as if telling a story. "She was brave and good, no matter how the evil women of that school mistreated her. She had the spirit of royalty, even if she did not have the blood or fortune of royalty."

Erik watched the fire and studiously avoided Ram Dass' gaze.

"What did she look like?" he asked, trying to sound uncaring.

"Sahib, you know that for yourself, for it was the little one that you met at your gate tonight," Ram Dass replied smoothly.

"You may go now," Erik said irritably, suddenly wanting to be alone, quite alone.

Ram Dass bowed and left the room, and Erik continued to stare at the fire.

Speaking to that wretched little servant girl had done something to him. That damned smile had knocked the keystone out of the dam of his reserve of painful memories, memories he had spent two years fighting.

Two years ago, he had made a hearth fire out of the Opera Populaire. Two years ago, he had killed senselessly for a dream that would never come true. Two years ago, Christine had forgiven him, then left him. Two years ago, all that was the phantom had died, leaving only the Erik the miserable man to get on with a miserable life.

After the first flush of nobility at relinquishing his love had passed, despair and depression had settled in. He had cursed his weakness at not being able to take his own unhappy life and end it all. He had not seen Christine or the boy, or Madame Giry since that night.

He had fled, living in the shadows until there were no more shadows to hide in. In a haze of angry pain, he had come to England to do something or nothing at all. With his talent for languages and mimicry, he was speaking like an Englishman within a few months.

Slowly but surely, the awful ordinariness of life reclaimed him from the shadows. He had engaged Carmichael as his solicitor, bought a house in the square and hired a man servant. He now took tea in the afternoons like every other civilized Englishman. He even worked occasionally, writing compositions for commission for Her Majesty's Theater. He was the unseen genius, though no longer anonymous as he signed his name Erik D'Arcy, the legal name that Carmichael had helped him procure.

For the past few months, he had been content to sink into the stupor of a kind of dark routine of daily life, speaking to no one except Carmichael and Ram Dass, and paying no heed to anything of the life of the square.

Now, this little servant girl had smiled at him. She had seen him…seen him and smiled.

Damn!

* * *

That night, on the other side of the wall, in the attic where no fire ever burned in the hearth, Sara sat huddled up on her thin bed, snuggling with Becky for warmth.

"Laws, miss!" Becky exclaimed. "Yeh sawer him!"

"I did, indeed," Sara replied with a dreamy smile. "He was quite handsome from what I could tell, and he had a beautiful voice."

Sara pulled the frayed coverlet more closely about her bony shoulders.

"He seemed sad, though," she added, her dark hair tumbling around her face like a Shetland pony. "Poor man! I shall smile up at his window and wish him well whenever I pass by."

"Some kind o' magic, miss, to make him feel better?" Becky asked, her round eyes wide.

"It might not make him feel better," Sara said with a little laugh. "But it shall make me feel better, at least, and that is not magic."

* * *

High in the sky that night, a thoughtful, silvery moon stood watch over the stars, over the young woman who slept soundly in her attic, and over the haunted man who tossed and turned in his feather bed.

* * *

**A/N: Here I am again, with my new fic as promised. It's a bit of a departure for me, but I love a challenge. For those who follow my stories, you'll note that this is the first time I use Erik's name in the story...and this is the first time I've done anything away from the opera house. **

**I'm very excited about this story, as it's a lot of fun to weave together my own sequel to "A Little Princess" and "The Phantom of the Opera." I hope you enjoy this story!**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate September**


	2. Transformation

Sara's strength did not return as the days grew shorter and the air grew colder. When she was not in the schoolroom, teaching lessons to the little ones, she was running errands for the cook.

Lottie would watch her worriedly, though there was almost never a moment where she could slip away and speak to Sara. She saw Sara's pale, pinched face and the slow, tired gait of her walk. But she also saw the determined way that Sara would press her lips together and set her jaw, as if determined to soldier on.

True to her word, Sara never failed to pause for a moment before the gate of the mysterious gentleman's house and smile up at the darkened window. Once in a great while, Sara thought she could make out the slightest movement behind the glass, like a dark coat sleeve or a shoulder. Then, she would hurry on, not wanting to draw the cook's ire for being late with the parsley or rabbit, or whatever was in her basket.

"Perhaps he is in hiding," she mused to herself as she passed by his window. "Perhaps he is very ill or has had his heart broken. How I wish he could be happy. I would like to see his face smiling in the window sometime."

One night, she was hurrying on her way through the square in the icy rain that had started to fall. She struggled along the slippery sidewalk, clamping her bedraggled hat to her head with a red, raw hand that was too numb to feel any more cold. But careful as she was, she could not help slipping and falling hard to her hands and knees on the sidewalk, the contents of her basket flying everywhere.

For a moment, Sara was too dazed from the pain in her knee, which had hit the sidewalk with the full force of her fall, to notice that her precious bundles were slowly getting soaked in the rain. As it was, she hardly noticed that a pair of hands had encircled her waist and was picking her up to her feet.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was like warm velvet, and its breath tickled her ear. Sara shivered, but it was not from the cold, nor was it from any sense or feeling that she had ever experienced before.

It was yet another moment before the waves of pain receded enough for her to recover her powers of speech.

"Y-yes, thank you," she said softly, half turning in the man's supportive embrace to look up at him. Her grey-green eyes widened in surprise when she saw that half of the man's face was concealed by a mask. Completely puzzled, Sara studied him with open fascination, only realizing what she was doing when the man's expression hardened, and he drew himself as far back from her as he could without letting go.

Sara smiled at the man, wanting to put him at ease.

"If you are a princess," she thought. "You must always think of others first and try to put them at ease in your presence."

She nodded to him, a friendly little expression on her thin face.

"Thank you for helping me just now," she said in her quaintly polite way. "It is so slippery on the ground, and I –" her words ended abruptly as she turned and finally saw the ruination of all her parcels, with the drenched paper slowly disintegrating and the bread growing soggy in the rain.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed and tried to lunge forward to collect them. Unfortunately, her knee gave way again, and she would have crumpled to the ground but for the man's grip on her waist which grew firm and surprisingly strong and pulled her back against a hard figure.

"Cook will be so cross," she whispered, almost to herself, her face crumpling with distress. No tears welled in her eyes, for Sara rarely cried. But her heart was pounding, and she dreaded returning without the packages intact, for she knew it would mean no supper.

"Never mind the cook," the man said, his voice again close by her ear. Sara froze at the sound of it, a strange shiver running through her. It was like a thrill, but it was almost frightening in its beauty. She again turned in the man's grip and faced him, looking up at him, her distress still evident in her eyes.

"It is all very well to say that, you know," Sara replied with a shadow of a smile. "But you have not met Cook."

"Nor do I intend to," the man replied curtly, his expression closed and watchful.

A silence fell between them, and Sara could feel her heart pounding in a way that it never had before. The man's eyes were green like hers, and even his strange, mysterious mask lent him an unearthly kind of beauty. Her little hands were unconsciously resting on his arms, and through his closeness, she could feel a kind of warmth emanating from his body. The icy, biting rain falling on her seemed to fade into nothingness, for she was consumed by the vision before her and by the odd new sensations in her body.

In the silence that seemed so loud in her ears, Sara felt him raise his arm, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hand – encased in a black leather glove – reach for her face. With his forefinger, he traced the line of her jaw, just the lightest of touches! Sara felt two bright spots of pink begin to burn in her pale cheeks, and it was suddenly hard to swallow.

"Come inside and warm yourself by the fire," the man said softly, and Sara found herself hypnotized by the way his mouth moved when he spoke.

She broke from her reverie with a start at his words.

"Oh, oh…" she stammered. "That is so very kind of you. Truly, very, very kind. But I must get back. I am sure they are missing me already, and it is best that I face the firing squad with the soggy bread and get it over with. We soldiers don't shrink from admitting our faults, you know."

Her words had started out hesitant, but by the end, she was smiling and speaking to this strange man as if they were great friends. Upon reflection, her expressions seemed a bit silly to her, but there was not taking them back now.

The man's mouth twitched as if considering a smile, but his eyes were grave and earnest.

"You are cold and wet," he stated, his voice now firm and authoritative. "You should come in and warm yourself by the fire."

Sara blushed miserably, biting her lip. "But, sir, you see," she started to say, then hesitated.

"But what?" the man asked, frowning.

"They will ask me very awkward questions if I were to return even later than I am," Sara said in almost a whisper, new and shameful thoughts entering her head. "And especially if I am dry."

She paused for a moment, pondering how ridiculous her own words sounded in her ears. And then, her sweet, merry little nature rose up past her momentary embarrassment, and she laughed.

The man seemed taken aback, then reluctantly chuckled himself.

"I…I really should go now," Sara said softly, a shy smile on her lips. "Thank you again for your help and your offer of a warm fire. You are very kind. Very kind."

With that, she gently disengaged the man's hands from around her waist, though it left her feeling strangely forlorn. She limped over to the damaged and ruined parcels and placed them back in her basket.

Sara turned to look back at the man, who stood just where she had left him. With a curtain of icy raindrops falling between them in the somber dusk, she smiled once more and nodded to him. Then she turned and limped forward to the entrance of the seminary.

* * *

Erik watched the young woman limp back to the school. He watched until he was certain that she had been admitted to the small door at the bottom of the stairs that led into the kitchen. Then, he ran up the stairs into the warmth and comfort of his own house.

It would have been impossible for him to describe what was going through his mind at that moment, for so many thoughts were warring for supremacy.

There was the thought that he hated that interfering, cruel Cook. There was the thought that he had just touched a woman – something that he hadn't done since…There was the thought that she had seen his mask and not flinched back or reached to snatch it from him like…There was the thought that she had smiled at him and called him kind. There was the thought that he was a fool and an idiot. There was the thought that he had no idea what he was doing. There was the thought that she passed his house every day and smiled at his window. And, there was the thought that she did not know that he found himself waiting every day by the window for that smile.

With an irritable exclamation, he threw himself into the warm, soft easy chair before the crackling fire in the parlor. Tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair, he thought and thought, but could find no ease in his thoughts. With a growl, he rose and stalked over to the grand piano that stood in the corner. He sat down and began to play. It didn't matter what he played, old or new, his own or someone else's work. He simply had to speak in music to say how utterly confused and frightened he was.

Ram Dass, who had watched his master from the moment he entered the square and found the Missee Sahib to the moment he sat at the piano, stood in the shadows and smiled thoughtfully to himself.

* * *

Sara climbed the stairs to her attic wearily, stopping to rest several times. She had been so absent-minded that she had been scolded often during the dinner where she sat with the youngest children and made sure they cleaned their plates and didn't make a mess.

When she reached her room, she stripped off her still-soaked, ill-fitting gown, thinking vaguely of how it had been Lavinia's before Lavinia had left school, a parting shot from that spiteful girl to leave the princess her cast-offs.

But instead of rushing to wrap herself in the coverlet and curl into a little ball to warm herself up, Sara paused in front of the chipped mirror that hung over her washbasin. She studied her reflection as if she had never seen herself before.

"I am twenty-one," she thought to herself, looking at her face and then hesitantly letting her eyes wander down the reflection of her body. "Other girls my age are married by now. I don't think I would like that. No one would marry me now that I would want to marry. I don't think I look like I am a woman of twenty-one. Lavinia was very…shapely at eighteen, and I have no curves at all. I think I am quite plain, actually, but that is not so bad, as I never was a pretty child like Lottie."

She tentatively patted her waist where the man's hands had held her so firmly, so surely.

"I must be mistaken," she said softly to her reflection. "He was being kind to me, that is all."

Her heart gave a lurch, as if it was awakening from a long slumber to a new world, a new era.

"Oh, but how nice he was," she whispered longingly to the young woman in the mirror.

Emily watched in silence as Sara Crewe the girl was transformed into Sara Crewe the woman.

* * *

**A/N: I am soooo glad people like this story and don't think I'm a totally raving lunatic for wanting to bring these two together. And just for clarification, I am going by book-verse for The Little Princess (so Sara has black hair and green eyes, and her father died when she was eleven) and the movie-verse for POTO. I'm fudging the timelines a little bit so that the two stories coincide, but I figure as long as they take place in mid-late Victorian England, we're all set, LOL!**

**I hope to update again very soon...and don't think that this is going to be a short and sweet get-together story. I'm still evil and have evil things planned...ha ha!**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate**


	3. It is the Child!

It is the Child!

"Come, come!" Carmichael protested with a hearty laugh. "It is bad form to turn down a dinner invitation, especially from your solicitor."

Erik shrugged and frowned. "Then I have bad form," he said curtly, keeping his back to the fire, so its glow made it more difficult to discern his face in the dim light of his richly furnished study.

"My wife will have my ba…I mean head if I do not bring you to dinner," Carmichael chuckled. "She had the cook prepare a special meal."

Erik hesitated. He hated to keep turning the man down, but the very thought of sitting down in a brightly-lit dining room, with a table full of faces staring at him set his teeth on edge.

"It will do you good to get out of the darkness, sir," Carmichael added more gently, stepping over to Erik and laying a fatherly hand on the man's shoulder. Erik started and stared at the man who had touched him – touched him without reserve or disgust, just as if he had been a friend or a son…or a man with a face. "Come along, D'Arcy. I promise that nothing untoward will happen."

Erik narrowed his eyes at the meaning of the man's words, but he was wearying of refusing him. Brusquely, he nodded. Ram Dass seemed to materialize out of nothingness with Erik's hat and cloak. Erik glared at the man, envying and hating the fact that the Lascar could move as silently, if not more so, than he himself.

With a scowl, Erik donned the hat and cloak and followed Carmichael out the door, down the steps and across the square. As he walked, he found himself glancing involuntarily at Miss Minchin's Seminary and thinking about the young serving woman there. He opened his mouth to ask Carmichael about the school, then clamped his lips firmly together, reprimanding himself for such foolishness.

Besides, he had other things to worry about…like sitting at a dining table like a normal man eating with normal people…who had faces.

"Mr. D'Arcy!" cried pretty, comfortable Mrs. Carmichael at the door. She smiled warmly at him. "What an absolute pleasure – and I am so happy, for it is far better for you to get out of that lonely old house and spend time with people."

"It is a rare and kind person who wishes to spend time with me, Madame," Erik replied softly, bowing gracefully.

A servant came and took his hat and cloak, and as was proper, he offered his arm to Mrs. Carmichael, his hostess. She took it with the charming, coquettish smile of a woman who was radiant with the beauty of her life, her forty-five years weighing but lightly on her. She lead him into the brightly-lit, comfortable, cheerful dining room. Several young people were milling about, laughing and talking and teasing with an ease that could only come from being siblings.

"My children, Mr. D'Arcy," Mrs. Carmichael said. She proceeded to introduce them all. Erik stared hard at Donald, the youngest. He was a tall, strapping boy of 15. No, boy was not the right word for him. He was almost a man. But what disturbed Erik the most was the uncanny resemblance to another handsome young man he had had the misfortune of crossing paths with. The golden hair, blue eyes, clean-cut features…

"Mr. D'Arcy," said Donald, extending his hand.

Erik shook it gravely, too drawn into his thoughts to make a reply.

Everyone sat down, and Erik took his place at his host's right hand. A somewhat strained silence fell over the table, and Erik could tell that the young folks were dying to ask questions and talk, but were unsure where to begin.

Feeling trapped, Erik thought frantically of something, anything he could say. But the moment the words left his mouth, he wished he had never been born.

"It must be quite interesting living next to this school."

"Oh, I don't know," Carmichael said, taking a sip of his wine. "It's somewhat dull, actually. Not that I am complaining. I wouldn't want to live in a square with too much excitement. I get that in my office all day long."

"It is lovely though to see the little girls going in and out," Mrs. Carmichael added. "It reminds me of when my children were young and not the rowdy rapscallions they are now." She smiled at Donald who grinned affectionately back at his mother.

"Oh, but I think there are some interesting things about the place," Nora interjected, eager to join in the conversation with the mysterious friend of her papa's. "For instance, there's the-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar. But she's not a little girl any more. She's quite grown up."

Erik stiffened despite his efforts not to show the sudden and violent interest he had in Nora's words.

"And how did she come by such a name?" he asked, trying to keep the hand that held the soup spoon from trembling.

"Oh, that was my doing, sir," Donald replied with a good-natured smile that instantly made Erik feel an unreasonable surge of dislike for the boy. "I was little at the time, and it was Christmas. I saw her on the street, and she looked very shabby, rather like the beggar children in the pious stories one reads at that time of year. I ran out to her and gave her my whole Christmas sixpence, convinced that I had provided for her for the rest of her days."

"She said you were very kind and called you a dear, dear little thing," Nora added with a laugh. "Donald spoke of nothing else for months afterwards."

The young man blushed, and Erik instantly hated him for no good reason other than he was even more handsome when he blushed.

"I've often wished that somehow, some good fortune would befall her," Donald said thoughtfully. "She is rather pretty, and she was not born to be a common servant, of that I am sure. Something terrible must have happened in her life to bring her down so dreadfully."

"Donald is at the age where all boys discover romance," Mrs. Carmichael said with a pretty laugh. "He'd court her if he got half a chance, just to be her knight in shining armor."

Donald blushed again, and Erik's hand was white-knuckled around the soup spoon.

Then, as magic often arranges things, the most marvelous coincidence happened. A young housemaid timidly stepped into the dining room.

"If you please, ma'am," she said softly. "There's a young lady, the servant from the seminary, at the door. She found Boris and has brought him back."

"By George!" Carmichael exclaimed. "That's lucky for you, Donald, my boy! You get your dog and your young lady all at once!"

There was a merry, mad chaos as everyone, including Erik, rushed from the dining room to the foyer where the young servant woman stood, struggling to hold onto the large, Russian wolfhound who was evidently delighted with his new companion and was doing its best to jump on her and knock her over so she would play with him.

"I'm so sorry to disturb you, sir," Sara said, addressing the father of the Large Family. "Your dog came to the kitchen door of the school. I knew it was yours, so I brought him back over."

At this point, Boris wriggled free of Sara's grasp and joyfully pounced her, knocking her to the floor and vigorously licking her face.

"Down, sir!" cried Donald to the dog, cutting in front of Erik to reach Sara. Erik watched with barely concealed lividness as the young man took the girl's hands and helped her to her feet.

Sara laughed and smiled, the smile that lit up any room she walked into. "Thank you," she said to Donald, whom she still thought of as Guy Clarence.

"My dear, how can we thank you?" said Mrs. Carmichael warmly, coming over to stand between her son and the servant girl. She hadn't missed the way Mr. D'Arcy had looked at the young woman, nor had she missed his trembling hand at dinner. A woman does not raise a large family without learning to notice things.

"Oh no, there is no need, ma'am," Sara said in her soft, pretty voice – a voice that made Erik's fingers long for a piano to play and hours to teach her to use that voice. "I am just glad I was able to help."

"But we must do something for you!" Mrs. Carmichael said, a pleasant little scheme forming in her mind. "Look at you, dear. You are nothing but skin and bones. Come, we were just having dinner. You must join us."

Erik found his heart ached at the expression on the young woman's face. It was so wistful, so hungry, so longing for something more comforting than soup. The way she looked at Mrs. Carmichael moved him so deeply that he turned his face for a moment so that no one would see the play of emotion over it.

"That, that is a lovely offer," Sara faltered, wishing with all her might that she could stay. "But I must get back. Cook will be missing me."

"Damn the cook!" Erik exclaimed, unable to contain himself. "She is more trouble than she is worth. You will come in and have soup, or I will go over there and…and…" his words trailed off, partly because he couldn't very well announce in polite company that his intention was to strangle the woman, and partly, or mostly, because of the look in the young woman's eyes.

He swallowed hard at her sweet gaze. She was looking at him as if he was her hero, her champion, a knight…a handsome knight with a face.

Sara smiled as warmly as she knew how at the mysterious gentleman, delighted to find him here, happy for his sake that he was befriended by the Large Family.

"Come along, my dear," Mrs. Carmichael said, giving her husband a pointed, knowing look that was not lost on the clever solicitor. "The soup will be getting cold."

Sara started out of her reverie and looked at the woman, her face wrinkling with regret.

"I can't," she said sadly. "I will get in trouble."

"Well, even if you must leave," Donald said, stepping forward and boldly taking the girl's hand. "Tell us your name, so that we may know you when you pass by our house."

"You've…you've seen me?" Sara said, a trembling, joyful note in her voice, thinking that little Guy Clarence – or not so little any more…in fact, very grown up – noticed a poor, bedraggled figure crossing the square.

Donald nodded, squeezing her hands and rubbing them. "Your hands are quite cold," he said. "Why do they not give you mittens?"

"I…they…" Sara stammered, flushing, not wanting to tell the whole sordid story. She hated pity, and they would pity her if they knew. She just wanted to be seen…to know that someone out there cared that she existed.

"You didn't tell us your name!" Nora piped up, coming to stand beside Donald.

"I'm Sara."

"Sara what?"

"Sara Crewe."

Mr. Carmichael started and leapt over to where Sara stood with Donald. He took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"How do you spell your last name, my dear?" he exclaimed.

Erik watched the scene unfold, bewildered by everyone's reaction. The Carmichael youths were staring with slack jaws, Mrs. Carmichael had brought her hands to her face to catch the sudden welling of tears. And Carmichael himself seemed to have gone mad. Erik felt himself tensing, knowing and hating himself for knowing that he would jump to the girl's defense if anything were to happen.

"C-r-e-w-e," Sara replied, sounding as bewildered as Erik felt.

"What was your father's name?" Carmichael demanded as gently as his excitement would permit.

"Captain Ralph Crewe," Sara said softly, thinking of the last time she spoke of her father. "He died when I was eleven. He died in India."

"Margaret!" Carmichael exclaimed to his wife, his eyes shining with pure joy. "It is the child! It is the child!"

"What child am I?" Sara asked, starting to tremble.

"A very, very fortunate one, my dear," Mrs. Carmichael said, sweeping Sara into her warm, soft embrace. "My husband has been looking for you for a very long time. He has something of yours to return to you."

"I don't understand?" Sara said, clinging to the kind woman.

"The diamond mines," Carmichael said, his voice choked with emotion. "I am the solicitor for your poor papa's friend. Your papa's friend went mad trying to find you, and he died of grief when he could not. He lived in the house next to the seminary for many years."

"Next door?" Sara whispered, her face grown quite pale and her eyes quite large.

"Yes, dear child," Carmichael said with almost a sob. "He wanted to take care of you, to give you what was rightfully yours – your father's fortune, trebled by the diamond mines."

"But they-" Sara started to say.

"They did not fail," Carmichael said, shaking his head and taking her hands. "They are now some of the richest and most productive mines in the world. Your papa's friend left his share of the mines to you, and I was to hold them in trust until I found you. I searched and searched, but no school had a record of Ralph Crewe's daughter. Even the one next door."

"But I was there!" Sara cried out, clutching her thin hands to her chest. "I was there, I was there…all this time, I was there…" she added in a whisper.

"Miss Minchin did not know why I called, and no doubt wanted to avoid another creditor's call," Carmichael said, his eyes narrowing. He shook his head and held his arms open to Sara, who joyfully ran to them.

"You are now a very, very wealthy young woman," he said, patting her hair like he would with his own daughter. "And you have us, too, if you wish it. You need never return to Miss Minchin's."

Sara raised her pale, joyous little face to him.

"Never?" she whispered.

"Never," Carmichael affirmed.

And brave Sara Crewe burst into tears of happiness, for she was found at last by people who had cared for a lost little girl's sake all those years.

And Erik D'Arcy turned to hid tears of sorrow, for he was lost again, finding again that hope was nothing more than the cruelest of tortures, for no heiress would look twice at a monster.

And Mrs. Carmichael watched him surreptitiously and knew what he was thinking. She smiled to herself, thinking otherwise.

* * *

**A/N: A special long chappie for everyone to enjoy :) I know some will be surprised that I didn't have Erik be the one to climb over the roof and change her room...but it didn't quite seem to fit. Besides, I need to have them know each other for all the evil things that are going to happen...**

**I will update again soon!**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate**


	4. The Princess Again

It was an evening to remember. After happy, tumbling introductions to the family, Mrs. Carmichael had firmly ushered Sara into the dining room. Never had the Large Family known such delight as seeing the-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar sitting at their dining table, hungrily wolfing down soup, pausing to smile with bewildered joy at everyone. 

When her bowl was empty, Sara looked almost wistfully at it, enjoying the extraordinary sensation of having something warm and filling in her. She happened to look up at the mysterious gentleman who sat across from her and saw that he was studying her quite intently with a gaze that made her heart skip a beat. In the bright light of the room, she saw that half his face was alarmingly handsome, while the other half was concealed beneath a white kid leather mask. She smiled tentatively at him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," Sara said softly, just to have something to say. "But I'm afraid I have forgotten your name."

"That is because we were never introduced," the man replied curtly.

Sara bit her lip.

"His name is Erik D'Arcy, and he's quite a prodigiously talented composer and musician when he's not being taciturn to young ladies," Carmichael said with a pleasant laugh.

Sara blushed and nodded her head to Erik, who barely inclined his in return.

"Tell me, Miss Crewe, do you remember that we met a very long time ago?" Donald said, turning to Sara, whom he was seated next to. His boyish face was handsome and alight with tender emotion.

Sara smiled and in reply, reached for something she wore around her neck and pulled it out of her bodice. It was a worn little sixpence on a frayed old ribbon. Donald was speechless and his expression ecstatic, prompting his father to cough loudly into his napkin to hide a shout of laughter.

"I have worn it all these years in memory of a little boy who was kind to me," Sara whispered. "Someone saw me that day and cared that I existed. It meant the world to me."

Donald ducked his head slightly, so that his forehead and Sara's were almost touching. Reverently, he brushed the sixpence in her hand with his fingers.

"I've seen you everyday since then, Miss Crewe," he said awkwardly, blushing richly.

"Please, everyone here must call me Sara."

"Sara..."

"I must be going." Erik's abrupt words accompanied his quickly standing up from the table and bowing to Mrs. Carmichael.

"But you must NOT be going, sir," Mrs. Carmichael replied merrily. "We've not even begun the fish course, and cook has made a special dessert in honor of you."

Erik's closed, inscrutable gaze moved from Mrs. Carmichael to Sara, who smiled warmly at him, though she looked somewhat puzzled.

The smile was his undoing. Something in that smile melted every single bit of ice in his heart whenever it was turned on him.

"Please stay," Sara said softly. "I did not mean to break up this dinner party, especially if it is in your honor."

Erik stood for a moment in the agony of decision but was spared both the pain of leaving and the humiliation of staying by the parlor maid entering and saying that a Miss Minchin was there to see Mr. Carmichael.

Carmichael and his wife exchanged a quick, significant glance and rose from the table.

"Donald, you and the others stay here," he said. "Sara, my dear, will you come with me?"

Sara stood up, and Erik noticed that she had become quite pale again, though she showed no other sign of fear. He mumbled something noncommittal about getting a bit of air before returning to the table and followed Sara and Carmichael into the foyer. He did mean to go out for air, it was not his place or his business to participate in whatever business Carmichael and Sara had with the pinch-faced old woman who stood stiffly on the Persian rug.

But he never quite made it out the door, for he saw that Sara hung back somewhat from Carmichael, as if trying to keep her distance from Miss Minchin. Some blasted, inconveniently chivalrous instinct rose within him, and he'd be damned if he'd let her look so forlorn and vulnerable before that woman. Unconsciously, he stepped over to Sara's side, as if to lend her slight frame more ballast with his own imposing one.

"I am terribly sorry to bother you, Mr. Carmichael," Miss Minchin said. "But I am come to retrieve my servant who has intruded so disgracefully upon you. Go home at once!" she added, turning to Sara. "You will be severely punished!"

Without realizing exactly how, Erik found his arm had encircled Sara's thin shoulders and that he held her firmly at his side. He was both shocked and rewarded by the slight pressure of her ever so faintly nestling up against him.

"Miss Crewe will not be returning to your seminary," Carmichael replied smoothly. "Heiresses of diamond mines have better things to do than carry coal and run errands for the cook."

"The...the...diamond mines?" gasped Miss Minchin, feeling as though some awful ghost from the past was rising up before her eyes.

Carmichael smiled a most unlawerly like smile and proceeded to explain in great detail Sara's situation. Erik listened intently as well, putting the pieces together in his agile mind and fuming inwardly at the years of needless hardship Sara had suffered.

Sara herself felt cold and dazed as the scene unfolded before her. It was only when Miss Minchin addressed her that she snapped out of her reverie.

"I suppose you think you can be a real princess now," Miss Minchin said acidly.

Sara winced slightly, unconsciously grateful for the warm strength that seemed to be the only thing keeping her standing. Her pet pretend was very dear to her, and she didn't think others would understand.

"I...I only pretended to be a princess because I wanted to be good and kind," she whispered, her large eyes fixed on the woman before her.

"You failed, then," Miss Minchin snapped, her temper unraveling in the face of calamity. "You have always been willful and ungrateful. You will find her a proud, uncaring, spoiled brat," she added, turning to Carmichael.

"And you will find your way to the door, madam," he retorted coolly. "You can have nothing further to say."

Sara closed her eyes until she heard the door bang and felt the swish of air that announced that Miss Minchin was gone...gone forever.

"Sara, are you all right?" Carmichael asked with kind concern in his voice, seeming not to see the man who stood by her side and held her around her shoulders.

"Yes, thank you," she replied faintly. "If you would be so kind, I would just like a moment...a moment alone. So much has happened, you see. I just need to think for a moment."

"Of course, my dear," Carmichael said, slipping back into the dining room.

It took Erik a moment to realize that Sara probably meant him as well, and he suddenly released her and hurriedly took his hat and cloak from the stand next to the door. He was halfway down the steps when a voice stopped him.

"Wait, please?"

He turned to see Sara coming down the steps toward him. Struggling for reserve in light of all the embarrassing emotions he had shown...or at least experienced that night...he stood where he was and waited.

Sara came down to stand on the same step with him, forcing her to look up into his face. He felt his heart pound at how beautiful her thin little face was in the moonlight, with the eerie radiance reflected in her eyes.

"I wanted to thank you," she whispered.

"There is nothing to thank me for."

"Oh but there is. You were very kind to stay with me just now. It...was not easy to face Miss Minchin with all the tumult in my mind and heart. And you were there, like the Rock of Gibraltar."

Erik said nothing, for he found he could not speak. The chill of the night air turned their breath to ghostly plumes that hung between them. Sara smiled hesitantly at him, and he was undone.

He seized her hands and pressed his lips fervently to them, not daring to meet her eyes.

"Good night, princess."

And he was gone, crossing the square with long strides, leaving an astonished Sara Crewe standing on the steps of her new home.

* * *

**A/N: I'm so sorry for the long delay, but I have been swamped with deadlines for my books that are going to be published! I also have had a wicked bad cold for the past week, so I'm just now back into the swing of things.**

**But to make up for it, you get a special double treat today with two chapters - the next one will be coming in a little bit...**

**And remember, never get too comfortable because I am always evil and always plotting!**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate September**


	5. The Phantom Again

Erik did not sleep that night. There were too many painful things that kept sleep at bay. 

The impossible had happened twice, first with Christine and now with Sara. Could a man love twice in a lifetime? Where was the grief that had been his companion for two years now? Was his heart so changeable, or was this the way of the world - a world he had only begun to learn about since leaving the opera.

It was as if a period of mourning had suddenly ended for him, yet he was not prepared to begin living again.

He was shocked and miserable at thought of his display of emotions that evening. His jealousy of a 15-year-old boy had made him look ridiculous, and his infatuation with a servant girl had made him say and do unthinkable things. He had held a woman in his arms, intruding on her business as if it was his own and his job to protect her. He had kissed her hands and called her a princess. All because she had smiled at him.

He could not have made himself more vulnerable if he had gone walking through Piccadilly Circus naked and without his mask, and banging a drum to call attention to himself.

His mask.

Oh God.

It was as if he finally remembered the reason why he was not supposed to allow his heart to feel things like tenderness. His face. His damnable half-face. Carmichael's words twisted and haunted him.

"Heiresses to diamond mines deserve better things than the attentions of a man with only half a face."

Erik moaned and stretched his body out fully under the heavy down quilts, remembering the way Sara had nestled against him and recalling the other time when he had picked her up off the pavement, holding that fragile little body against his. He gnashed his teeth in frustration with his desire. Why was he so weak? He had gone for so long, a whole lifetime, with only one kiss from a woman who hadn't really meant it. Where was his discipline? How dare he think longingly of a woman whose body was as forbidden to him as her heart?

He jumped up from the bed and paced angrily back and forth to try and release some of the unholy energy he felt. Was this love? Was it desire? Was it simply his loneliness reaching for what was nearest?

Damn!

Erik slammed his palms against the wall, and hung his head in despair. He knew he would never have the courage to look those questions in the eye and answer them. To give an answer was to admit to a weakness that he shared with all men.

And he was not a man.

He was a phantom. And that was what he would remain.

* * *

**A/N: A quick little interlude, but I may just keep going, as I've got the idea for the next chapter already percolating...**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate September**


	6. A Music Lesson

"I have a surprise for you, my dear," Mrs. Carmichael said, coming into Sara's room one morning not long after she had gone to live with them. 

Sara, who had been curled up in a deep, comfortable easy chair with a book, immediately sprang to her feet. Already, after only two weeks, Sara looked much better. There was color in her cheeks, and she was beginning to fill out in the places that young ladies filled out - much to her embarrassment. Her dark locks had been swept up in a soft little bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore a pale blue gown, the first of many new frocks that Mrs. Carmichael had ordered from the seamstress for her.

Becky had come to be Sara's personal maid and companion, and she was busy in a corner of the room, fussing over Princess Sara's new linens and slippers.

"Yes, Aunt Margaret?" Sara said eagerly, using the name that Mrs. Carmichael had insisted on, as Mrs. Carmichael was entirely too formal.

"You are to begin music lessons today," Mrs. Carmichael said.

"Music lessons?" Sara asked. "But I have never learned any music, and I am quite sure I don't have any talent."

"Well, well, we shall let Mr. D'Arcy make that decision, shall we?" Mrs. Carmichael chuckled. "Now come down to lunch."

"Yes, Aunt Margaret," Sara said. "But I really would hate to waste Mr. D'Arcy's time if I should prove to have no talent. I would much rather go to hear one of his works performed, and he won't have the time to write his music if he's struggling to teach me the notes of the scale."

"We shall see, my dear. We shall see."

* * *

Erik sat nervously in the chair in front of the fire. He then stood up and paced back and forth in front of the hearth, then sat down again, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair.

Why had he let Carmichael talk him into giving Sara Crewe music lessons? What evil genie had possessed him and made him say yes? Two weeks had passed since that cold night when he had kissed her hands. He had managed to go two weeks without seeing her - except, of course, whenever she left the Carmichael house to go somewhere. He couldn't help but see her, naturally, when he stood by the window and looked out into the square...for no particular reason.

"Sahib, here is the water with lemon you asked for," Ram Dass said softly as he entered noiselessly and placed a tray with a pitcher and two glasses on a small table by the piano. "Do you wish for anything else?"

Yes, sweetest Sara in his arms.

"No, thank you," Erik growled.

The doorbell rang, and Ram Dass went to answer it. Erik stood up, then sat down, then stood up and moved over to the piano, his hand holding onto it. This was it. The phantom giving music lessons again to a girl he lov...no. It was just a music lesson. That was it. A way to pass the time. That was all.

Sara entered the warm sitting room and allowed Ram Dass to take her thick, soft coat from her. She felt oddly awkward, standing in the room of the man she hadn't seen in two weeks, since he had left her standing on the steps.

Mrs. Carmichael's announcement about music lessons had brought back all kinds of uncomfortable yet secretly thrilling memories of that night. Strange feelings had run riot through her body, springing from her heart and tingling in her fingertips and toes when she thought of the way Erik D'Arcy had looked at her, had held her...had kissed her hands.

And now, here she was again.

"Good afternoon, Mr. D'Arcy," she said softly, trying to smile as she normally did. But something in the way he turned when she spoke made her catch her breath and feel flustered.

"Miss Crewe."

"Thank you so much for being so kind as to...give me these lessons," Sara said. "But I want you to know that if it turns out that I have no talent, you are under no obligation to pretend that I have any."

She paused, confused at her own tumbling words.

"I never dissemble when it comes to music."

"Oh, that is good. But you said when it comes to music. Does that mean you dissemble otherwise?"

"No."

"Oh."

A pregnant silence hung between them.

"Can you sing a scale?" Erik asked, realizing it was up to him to lead the lesson and trying to block the thoughts of how lovely and soft and alluring Sara looked in her pale blue frock that showed the beginnings of maddening curves that had not been there before.

"No," Sara said, shaking her head. "I have never even tried."

"Then let us have you try."

The lesson itself was an unmitigated disaster. It was clear to Erik in the first five minutes that Sara could not carry a tune, and after a half-hour, he was convinced that she had no aptitude for music at all.

The realization both disappointed him and relieved him. He was disappointed because he had actually been looking forward to sharing his music again. But he was relieved because he would not have to continue teaching her, meaning that he would not have to continue exposing himself to her heady presence day after day.

"Drink some water," he ordered when Sara's voice was on the verge of giving out after yet another failed attempt to sing up and down a simple scale.

Sara gratefully took the glass and gulped the water down. She felt miserable at her obvious lack of talent, seeing the strain Erik was under to try and coax even the smallest correct sound out of her throat. She knew that he would not want to continue to teach her, and she could not blame him.

"I do not think I am very good at this," she confessed quietly, watching as Erik sighed and flipped through some sheet music on the piano.

Erik turned to her, and she felt the bottom of her stomach drop at the coolness in his eyes.

"No, you are not," he acknowledged. "I do not think you were meant to be a singer."

Sara nodded, and he found himself hating himself all over again for his blunt words. She looked so forlorn to him, so disappointed. He couldn't bear the fact that he had made her unhappy even though he had tried to be cold and distant so that neither of them would be unhappy in the end.

"You tried your best," he said awkwardly, fixing his eyes on the sheet music. "Why don't you sit down, and I will play you something."

Erik looked up from the sheet music - just a glance. But there it was. Her smile. She was smiling at him. No. She was smiling warmly at him, her green eyes glowing with some gentle emotion that seemed to speak wordlessly to his heart.

He almost seized her hands and kissed them again, but managed to stop himself in time. Instead, he looked hastily down at the keys and began to play something, anything.

Erik was several measures into the song before he realized he was playing a love song, one of those bathetic little tunes that he despised on principle. Yet, he couldn't stop his voice from singing the words that went along with the melody. Soon, he was lost in the song, improvising both lyrics and music to draw it out so that he could pour his whole heart into it.

When at last he looked up, he saw Sara still standing by the piano. Her hands were gently clasped over her breast and her eyes were shining. He couldn't help but keep looking at her, she was so indescribably lovely to him.

"That was beautiful," she whispered reverently. "It was like waking up to see a sunrise on a summer morning."

Erik opened his mouth as if to speak, then close it again and looked down at the piano keys.

Hesitantly, Sara reached out with her slim little paw to touch Erik's shoulder. She saw him stiffen when her fingers brushed the dark wool of his suit coat, but she found she couldn't pull away. Her fingers, taut and extended, slowly moved over the broad expanse of his black-clad shoulder, reaching his collar.

This was heaven, he thought as he felt her little fingertips gently brush against the edge of his collar where it met the skin of his neck. Those sweet little fingers softly traveled up his neck until they touched his good cheek, her soft skin catching on the faint roughness of his.

Oh, he was wicked for enjoying this moment, for not stopping it, for wanting her fingers to explore more and more of him. He was but a man, made of weak flesh with an insatiable heart, and it was the man who spanned his large hands around her tiny waist and drew her to him so that he could rest his face against her belly, just for a moment in an act of unspoken reverence and adoration.

It was magic to feel her softness so close to him, to inhale her fresh, slightly spicy scent. And no man on earth could have surpassed his happiness when he heard her little, happy sigh as she wrapped her fingers around the lapels of his coat and bent her head over his.

And then the doorbell rang.

Sara jumped back from his embrace, and he could see a bright pink flush spreading over her cheeks. He could see the look of confusion in her eyes, and it was his turn to feel forlorn and miserable.

"Sara!" Donald said, striding into the room with a grin. He came to stand next to Sara, his eyes eagerly taking in her glowing features. "It's nearly teatime, and I thought to come fetch you so you wouldn't miss it."

"Oh, that is...that is very kind of you, Donald," Sara stammered.

"So how was the lesson?" Donald asked, glancing from Sara to Erik. "Is your pupil as talented as she is beautiful?"

Sara opened her mouth to answer, but Erik found himself speaking before he could even think.

"I expect to see her here at the same time tomorrow," he said firmly. "Miss Crewe shows great promise."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, that really is it for today. I'm p&p'd out...but I think I've made up for the hiatus with three chappies today, LOL! I'll write more soon, but first I have to decide which evil wrench I'm going to throw into the works...**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate September**


	7. Deception

It was the same nightmare yet again.

Christine, his darling, sweet Christine.

She was laughing, her soft brown eyes full of love and contentment. Her belly was round, and she strolled arm-in-arm with her husband on the grounds of the de Chagny estate.

How could she have betrayed him, after everything? After all they had shared?

But she had. It was a betrayal of trust, of the heart, of everything that had meant anything to him.

He was bitter, but it was heart-ache that plagued him worse and kept his sleep fitful and his waking hours tormented. Not even a new country, a new life and new people could soothe the wretched memory of her smile.

Christine, his Christine.

Not his any longer…

Raoul de Chagny awoke with a start, covered in sweat. He pulled in deep gasps of air to try and calm himself.

How could she? His waking mind continued the interrogation of his dreams. After all he and Little Lotte had been through, how could she have simply left him and gone with his older brother?

But she had. She had done it so calmly, too, announcing to him one afternoon that she could no longer marry him, that it was his brother, Philippe whom she truly loved. Philippe – of all people! – who had objected to strenuously to Raoul's attentions to the lowly chorus girl-turned-diva.

He had attended the wedding, feeling like a ghost walking among the living, making everyone slightly uncomfortable with his brooding presence. And a few months later, when he had returned from a whirlwind trip of madness around the continent, he found that she was soon to present his brother with the de Chagny heir…a son that should have been his!

That had been the final straw. Raoul had fled France, moving to England and throwing himself into the whirlwind of society. Yet there again, he had found no comfort. No, he had only found one mistake after another.

And now he was trapped.

It was as if he had awakened from two years of sleepwalking, only to find himself engaged to the beautiful but difficult Lavinia Herbert.

And there was no getting out of this engagement, really. Gentlemen didn't do that, even though he suspected that Lavinia didn't have much of a heart to break.

To hell with it, Raoul swore silently. He'd go through with this sham of a marriage and sham of a life, and resign himself to hell afterwards.

He thought fleetingly of the Phantom and for the first time, he felt a twinge of sympathy for the man. Both abandoned by Christine. He wondered what had become of the phantom, but the question soon slipped from his thoughts as he slipped back to sleep, the early morning sounds of London street life lulling him into troubled rest.

* * *

"She would be terribly disappointed if you didn't go," Carmichael said pensively, sipping tentatively at the tumbler of whiskey as he studied Erik's expression.

"I dare say she'll be too busy with the other guests to notice my absence," Erik replied morosely, pacing restlessly in front of the hearth.

"You know that is not true."

"I won't go."

Carmichael laughed pensively. "To tell the truth, I don't think Sara wants to go much to her own coming out ball, either."

"Then why make her?"

"Because, my dear sir, she is of an age now where she should be in society."

"I still fail to see how that obligates me to go to a ball."

"I think Sara would feel greatly comforted by your presence there," Carmichael said softly, hoping that his words would do the trick. But if they didn't, he still had one more ace up his sleeve. It was his wife's idea, and he thought it brilliant, as her ideas always were.

Erik hesitated a fraction of a second, the words having the due effect. Sara felt…comforted by him? A wild surge of hope rose like a geyser in his heart, only to be drained by the dread of appearing in a ballroom full of people.

He shook his head. "Impossible, I am afraid."

Carmichael gave him a shrewd look then gazed nonchalantly at the fire. "Perhaps you'll make your excuses to her during your lesson tomorrow. You know, it's an odd thing, but Sara absolutely refuses to demonstrate any of the skills you are teaching her. She won't sing or play so much as a single note."

Erik froze. The man's words were innocent enough, but there was a sly, knowing tone to them that hinted that it wouldn't be too hard to discover that the music lessons were anything but…lessons…

Carmichael grinned inwardly.

"Miss Crewe knows she is not at the level where performing would be a pleasure either for herself or for her audience," Erik said in a final, wretched attempt to escape the snare that was fast closing in around him.

"Yet, she does seem to enjoy her lessons very much. Looks forward to them quite a bit and comes back smiling, glowing, you might even say."

Erik gave up.

"I…I shouldn't have to stay long?"

"Long enough to dance with her, I imagine," Carmichael chuckled.

"When is it?"

"Three days' time. At the Fairmont Hotel Grand Ballroom. Six o'clock."

"Very well."

"Sara will be delighted, my dear sir!"

Erik grunted and glared sulkily at the fire as Carmichael clapped him heartily on the shoulder.

"I haven't a proper suit of evening clothes for it," Erik said suddenly, grasping at one faint hope that a little lie would save him.

"Sahib, I have been remiss in telling you, but I received a message from your tailor this morning," Ram Dass said smoothly, entering the room with a tray of cheeses and finger sandwiches. "Sahib's evening clothes will be ready tomorrow afternoon."

There was a pause as all three men thought three very different things.

"Excellent!" Carmichael said jovially, putting down his glass. "Well, I'll be going. The missus has me running all manner of errands to prepare for this ball. Good day, D'Arcy!"

Erik sank into his armchair with a low groan of defeat.

* * *

"Did it work, my dear?" Mrs. Carmichael asked before she was even through the doorway of her husband's study.

"Most assuredly," Carmichael replied. "Though it does give me a bit of worry as to what those two really do during their music lesson."

"Oh, come now, Sara is too good a girl to do anything bad. Besides, Ram Dass has told me that Mr. D'Arcy spends most of the time playing his music on the piano, while Sara sits in a chair and listens raptly."

"That's it?"

"Indeed, my dear. But is that not enough? A man spending every afternoon serenading the young woman he adores is quite sufficient for a start."

"And you are sure, Margaret, that he is falling in love with her?"

"I've known it since that first night we found her."

"And you are sure that he is good enough for her?"

"He is a good man, Hugh, I can feel it. And you might do well to remember that Sara is not like other young ladies. A girl who has been a servant for ten years, no matter how many diamond mines she now owns, is not likely to have an easy time finding a young man of adequate understanding and sympathy in polite society."

Carmichael regarded his wife affectionately. "Dear Margaret, you are such a little schemer. I do hope you know what you're doing. I would hate to see either Sara or D'Arcy suffer."

"I have every confidence, Hugh."

"Come here and tell me that, my lovely wife!"


	8. The Diamond Mines Again

Never had being a princess been so difficult as it was that evening at the ball, dressed in a dreamy, gauzy white gown, with pearls at her neck and gloves on her hands.

Sara smiled her quaint, polite smile until her cheeks ached, and her fine little temper – never fully tamed – was simmering close to the surface.

She felt horribly self-conscious every time she took to the dance floor with a young man. Even though she had enjoyed dancing lessons as a child, her life as a servant had hardly been conducive to learning waltzes and polkas. The Carmichaels had hired a dancing master for a week of intensive lessons, and Donald had been most obliging in practicing with her every day.

"I wish this evening would end," she thought as she struggled to keep up with the music. "I would much rather be at home with a book than with all these people who congratulate me on my good fortune and look at me as if I were some prize to be won for their sons."

Indeed, Sara was finding that the attentions from the veritable army of young men who vied for a place on her dance card was somewhat of a frightening novelty. She felt strangely vulnerable, and no amount of pretending to be a princess could pretend away her discomfort.

The waltz ended, and Sara fled to the refuge of the punch bowl, only to be greeted by three young men who all offered her cups of punch. Sara took one with a quick word of thanks and tried again to find a safe haven in some corner of the ballroom, ending up behind a large potted plant.

A potted plant offered the best protection, and Sara ducked behind it, trying to marshal her reeling thoughts. She watched with a hint of regretful envy at the way Nora seemed to be enjoying herself, laughing, smiling and dancing. Nora looked unbelievably beautiful to Sara, with her golden hair, blue eyes and quick smile. More than that, Nora looked…right…in this ballroom. She belonged. Sara did not.

"I can't imagine the plant offers much in the way of conversation."

Sara looked up, a wealth of relieved emotion rushing through her veins at the sound of that voice. She offered Erik her first genuine smile of the evening.

"I can pretend that it does."

"Or you could simply talk with me. I promise to respond with more alacrity than a plant that will have to be reincarnated several times before it develops a set of vocal chords and lips to use them."

Sara laughed, and Erik felt his heart drop into his stomach. His eyes drifted inadvertently to the neckline of her dress, and his heart dropped even lower.

"Are-are you not enjoying yourself, Sara?" he whispered, inadvertently using her first name.

Sara bit her lip. "I…it was so very kind of Uncle Hugh to give me this ball. But I am afraid I don't belong here. I'm…too different."

She looked up and saw Erik's expression change ever so slightly, but she was unable to fathom its meaning.

"I didn't think you were the type to attend balls, Mr. D'Arcy." She tried to cover her sudden embarrassment with quick words.

"I'm not."

"Oh."

"Carmichael bullied me into it, and I'm obliged to stay until I dance with you."

A beat of silence.

"Oh."

Erik cringed, realizing that he had made dancing with her sound like an onerous chore, when in reality, he wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms.

"Perhaps…perhaps you might favor me with a dance?"

"Certainly. But I warn you. I am not very good at dancing."

"Good. Neither am I. We shall stumble around the floor together."

Sara laughed, feeling the slight tension between them ease at Erik's humor. They joined the waltz, Erik immediately giving lie to the fact that he was not a good dancer. Sara blushed several times as she stepped on his feet, but he never gave any indication that she was anything less than perfect in her movements. The truth of the matter was that he could not possibly have noticed her stepping on his toes when he was totally lost in the divine sensation of her trim little form held closely in his arms.

She was, as far as he was concerned, the perfect armful. She was soft in the right places and slender in others. She was lithe and pliant, molding her body against his as his arms pressed her closer than was proper to his chest. Oh! She was warm! He could feel her breath on the line of his jaw.

She was willing. Perhaps that was what stunned him most of all. There was no tension, no poised moment of flight in her muscles. Unlike…unlike…Christine…

Sara was willingly in his arms.

That fact alone made up for all the eyes that he knew rested on his odd appearance, with his perfect white mask standing out like a beacon of freakishness in the sea of normalcy.

"Well, well, if it isn't Princess Sara!"

Sara froze and stumbled at the sound of Lavinia Herbert's nasal voice and haughty accents.

"I hear your diamond mines are back. How odd to think that all those years you were a servant – how well I remember you carrying coal and taking my laundry! – you were such an heiress."

Lavinia laughed and Sara bit her lip quite hard.

"Really, Lavinia."

It was Erik's turn to bite his lip quite hard as Raoul de Chagny appeared at the side of his fiancée and quietly admonished her.

It would have been difficult to say at that moment whether it was Sara or Erik who contemplated violence with greater relish.

* * *

**A/N: I'm back, my dears! I'm sorry for the delay...I was busy with the release of my new book, "Duet of Desire." It's the second in my trilogy, La Belle Epoque. The first book, "Portrait of Desire," features an extremely Erik-like hero, so if you like my "Eriks"...you might want to check out "Portrait of Desire," available from Siren Publishing. The whole trilogy takes place in Paris, 1901, and...all three books have a pivotal moment that happens at a masquerade ball at the Opera Garnier..."Portrait of Desire" is about a young woman who has come to Paris to pursue an unconventional career as an artist, only to find an unconventional and uninvited lover in a fellow artist. "Duet of Desire" has for its heroine a young opera diva with a deadly secret to hide. The final book, "Dance of Desire," is what I'm working on right now, and it is the story of a mediocre dancer in the corps de ballet and how she falls for a handsome vicomte, only to find that she is suddenly engulfed in a terrible, tragic intrigue that threatens everything she holds dear.**

**My website link is featured on my profile, or you can go to Siren Publishing - the web address is actually sirenpub, and look up Kate September!**

**I promise more frequent updates...and I am also going to do something different here...I want you, my readers, to tell me what you want to see for my next story. Cast your vote now!**

**- Erik/OW**

**-Erik/Meg**

**-Erik/Christine**

**-Erik/Persia**

**-Erik/new opera managers w/daughter**

**-Erik/La Sorelli**

**-Erik/crossover with any other book or musical, e.g. Les Miserables (Eponine or Cosette), Pride & Prejudice, Jane Eyre, etc.**

**Tell me what you want to see...I'll update people on the voting process with each new chapter update, and I'll announce the "winning" theme with the end of this story :D**

**Yours in mischief,**

**Kate**


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